


define 'war'

by vaulthunter



Category: Original Work
Genre: Military, Poetry, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-03
Updated: 2016-07-03
Packaged: 2018-07-19 20:15:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7375849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vaulthunter/pseuds/vaulthunter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>reasons why you should be afraid.</p>
            </blockquote>





	define 'war'

i. there’s a moment just before the first bullet is fired. it’s not quite the calm before the storm – war is too chaotic for calm, war is too powerful for storms; no one says ‘oh, it’s thundering, suppose we’ll just have to pack up and go home.’ but there is something peaceful in that moment. maybe it isn’t calm. maybe it isn’t the word before the exclamation point. but it’s something. by god, it’s something.

ii. and guns should never fit comfortably in your arms.

iii. you can’t quite look at their faces, much like you can’t quite describe that moment. the knowing is the worst. close your eyes, dream of home, be at home, but there’s still a bullet in some father’s head, and there’s still blood on your hands. and you’re not safe. there’s no stopping to brush your fingers over their eyelids and utter a prayer for them– _dear god, i’d ask you to save this man, but in doing so there might not be room for me, and i can’t chance that._ no where is safe and every dodge, every dunk, every fervent hand motion, every brush of the trigger, makes the difference between life and death. 

iv. _i’m not safe i’m not safe i’m not safe_ –

v. it’s a culling, but it’s a calling. you might forget your name, you might forget what you’re fighting for, why you’re here, how any of this makes sense and how anyone would ever want to sentence someone to these horrors, but when you accepted that badge, you accepted that fate. _someone’s gotta do it,_ you thought, _and why not me?_

vi. guns should _never_ fit comfortably in your arms.

vii. _here is why,_ you think, saving one man’s life while taking another’s, because the two aren’t equal on this ground. because your finger is slick with blood and keeps slipping on the trigger. because your best friend’s life was just written off with, “man down!” because to get the best you have to give up the good, and because you forgot what 'good’ means, and because this man over the speaker keeps telling you to take lives while the man next to you tells you that guns should never fit comfortably in your arms. no, here is why it shouldn’t be you. 

viii. (here is why you should be afraid.)

ix. there’s a light, and it reminds you of the moment, that moment, before the first bullet pierces the air. it’s either death or a flash bang or the firing of a bullet right before your eyes and at this point you don’t care which, because the hilt of your gun is digging into your gut, and the barrel weighs a ton, and the trigger is slick with blood. there’s fear and then there’s fear, and the former is defined by that light, and that moment. pray that you never find out what it was.

x. over there is why guns should never fit comfortably in your arms, and over here is why you should be afraid, and down there is why your brother is afraid, and up above is why your sister keeps shooting. _i’m not safe i’m not safe i’m not safe_ \- but you are, cradling that gun, that gun that never fits comfortably, crouched behind the remnants of god’s house, surrounded by shattered glass, surrounded by him and her and that moment.

xi. he asked me to define war. i couldn’t do that, but i could tell him why he should be afraid.


End file.
